and still, it moves
by miabicicletta
Summary: "He sees it in the wistful glances at small children on the street, and in the way she deviates from her usual trek throughout the hospital in favor of routes that pass the maternity ward."
1. Chapter 1

_"Already a new man in your life?" he asked, pushing through the door to her small office. She sat at her desk, making notes in a file and bouncing an infant in her lap. _

_"Well, you know. Have to move fast with the young ones or someone else will pick them up," she said brightly. Sherlock registered the play on words, smiled. _

_"Charlie," Molly explained. "Belongs to Sally, one of the nurses upstairs. She was on the way out and forgot to drop off a chart. Told her I'd mind him for a while." Charlie snuggled against her shoulder, babbling as he reached for her ponytail. Molly gave him her thumb to grasp at. Developing his tactile senses; thoughtful of her._

_"Post mortem you wanted is over there," she said, gesturing to a lone file on top of the cabinet. She continued to bounce Charlie on her knee, humming a little tune. Something familiar. He was halfway through her findings (painstaking in detail, down to the toppings on the pizza the deceased apparently consumed as his unintended last meal) when the words began to make sense. _

_He turned over his shoulder, watching Charlie the Nurse's Child tug at her long hair, spilling it out of its binding. "Do you want children, Molly?" _

_"Yeah. Of course. Someday," she said, absently._

_He finished his report as Molly Hooper sing-songed the bones of the vertebral column to a cheerful little tune. _

_(In a sunny, far-removed and much neglected room of his mind palace, Sherlock Holmes privately admitted that if there was anyone worth having a child with, it would be a woman who could turn the thoracic vertebra into a nursery rhyme.)_

* * *

He sees it in the wistful glances at small children on the street, and in the way she deviates from her usual trek throughout the hospital in favor of routes that pass the maternity ward. When she queues for coffee. As she waits on the platform at Barbican Tube. Most often, he catches it directed toward the lovely and expectant Mary Watson.

"You're considering having a child," Sherlock says. The morgue is quiet at this late hour, as he expected.

Molly Hooper does not look up from the slide she's examining. "Yes."

_Interesting_. "Are you giving up on love, Molly?" It is the not the sneer it might have been, once.

She lifts her face from her microscope, though not to him, her eyes resting on some spot near the emergency procedures chart. "Not so much 'given up' just...sorted my priorities, I suppose." When she does turn to look at him, her gaze does not demure. Somewhere in the years after she orchestrated his death, the fretful stumbling went out of her. Perhaps killing a man will do that. Now he sees a young woman (no longer as young as she seems) and a friend.

"What do you need?" He asks.

Her brow furrows in confusion for a moment until the penny drops and her eyes widen, just a barely. _Oh_, he sees her think.

_Oh._

* * *

"Just tell me one thing," John Watson demands. He takes a measured breath, choosing his words with care. He looks to Sherlock with uncertain curiosity, and no small bit of menace as well. He cares for Molly. Frankly he is not at all sure how he feels about this development yet. So he goes to 221B, takes his place in the old armchair, folds his hands together and asks,"Why?"

Sherlock steeples his fingers below his chin, staring dispassionately through window at London, mad and terrible and perfect as it is. "I asked her to help me, once. She didn't hesitate, even though it meant lying to her friends. Keeping my secrets. Deceiving her colleagues. But she did it anyway because I asked her to."

He turns, meeting John's scrutiny at last. "So why, John? Because three years ago I made Molly Hooper kill me. "

John thinks maybe, _maybe_, he understands, just a little. As best anyone ever can understand what goes on in Sherlock's mind, anyway.

"I owe her a life," his best friend says.

* * *

Anna Hooper Holmes is born on cold day in late October, a tufty stripe of black hair running a perfect line down the middle of her head.

Sherlock's daughter would, of course – just, _of course_ she would – be born with a mohawk.

"And already the nonconformist, I see," John comments, a grin crossing his face. "Brilliant beauty. Well done, Molly. She'll be bossing David around in no time," he says, glancing sympathetically at his six-month-old son, asleep in the carrier with the ratty tail of a stuffed toy in his mouth. Right, well. Probably not a master chef, then.

"Mary's matching them in the crib, I think," Molly beams. Just hours after giving birth, she glows with happiness, but also appears more nervous than he's seen her for years. New Parent Terror, he diagnoses. He's only just gotten over it himself.

"Can you blame me?" Mary says, brushing Anna's spiky locks with her fingertips. "Think of the gene pool. Between our brains and good looks, there will be no stopping them." She looks sympathetically between John and Sherlock, adding, "I'm sure you boys add something to the package as well."

"Unless of course she prefers women," Sherlock drawls from his perch against the wall. "She certainly does now. Well, just the one, really."

"Shut up," Molly says, regaining her feist and throwing a decisive look in his direction. _Leave the speculation about our daughter's sexuality for at least another decade, will you? _

"You're a lucky man, Sherlock Holmes," Mary says to him before they leave Barts. "You be good."

"I'm always good," he replies. "Oh, you mean be _nice_. No. Boring." Mary smacks him playfully. So far, parenthood hasn't changed Sherlock.

(On the whole, John is somehow relieved to know it.)

* * *

He understood, finally, in the moment after the pediatric nurse placed his daughter in his arms and she had looked upon him with wide, pale eyes, full of infinite questions – when she held his gaze for the first time; when she did not cry – that this, _this_ was all that people meant to say when they spoke _love_.

She is small; her tiny hands cannot encircle his thumb. She does little other than sleep and eat, and yet, he is fascinated by her in all ways. Love is a still a thing that perplexes him in the abstract. But not her. Oh, never her. If love in the the macrocosmic takes the shape of bloggers and colleagues and brothers and friends, then in its simplest, purest form, it is exists in the sound of Anna's soft giggles; the warm, pliant curve of her skull; the gentle grip of her infant fingers attempting the most instinctive of movements. His mammalian brain demands bonding, and so, bond he does.

(He is no longer given to fighting off his baser instincts, it would seem.)

At Baker Street he dutifully presents her to Mrs. Hudson, who cries with happiness and coos like a pigeon. Molly cries a little, but in the way that indicates happiness, rather than grief and hurting. When she falls asleep in his bed, exhausted from labor and its aftermath, he presses a kiss to her forehead, studying her in silence: the curtain of hair spilling over her shoulder, curve of her jaw, so small in his hands. Strange; she is so much larger in his mind than in life.

He walks Anna around the flat, introducing her to Bill the Skull, and to Kevin the bison on the wall. He describes his experiments, and by her solemn expression can see she's already very much interested in how they turn out. Obviously.

(A door in his mind opens on the very room in which they stand, and in his vision a young ponytailed girl sits politely at his side, smirking at his clients and exchanging private smiles with him when they reach the same conclusions.)

At John's wedding he had admitted he'd never expected to be anyone's best friend. It naturally followed that he never expected to be anyone's father. And if the terror he felt then pales in comparison to what he feels now, well, he's risen to the occasion before.

(_Hadn't he?_)

The groaning of footsteps on the stairs. Not as loud as the last time he visited; Mycroft must be dieting again.

Sherlock cocks his head to the side, looking out the corner of his eye. "What's that? We have a visitor? Well spotted, darling. She's very observant," he says, turning around. "No surprise there."

Mycroft stands in the door clasping his omnipresent umbrella. "Well, genetics is something of a lottery. So: The offspring," he says, pronouncing it with mild distaste.

"Anna, meet your uncle Mycroft," he says, proffering the perfection of her.

"How _proud_ you must–"

What casual disdain lay in his brother's smug expression vanishes. It is almost instantaneous, the spell she casts upon him. Anna crows and chirrups a sweet, infant's sound as she burrows into Sherlock's shirted arm. Mycroft appears to be wonderstruck. His brows furrow so comically Sherlock can practically hear the query register: **[UNKNOWN DATA]**. He suddenly has a better grasp of the expression _love at first sight_. A thing he hadn't thought possible. _Interesting_.

"Oh," Mycroft manages.

_Well played_, he thinks, congratulating his daughter on her first victory over Mycroft (the first of many, he is certain, if the look of utter enchantment on his brother's face is to be believed).

Anna makes another small sound. "Hmm?" Sherlock sounds. "Oh, she'd like you to know she wants to be a pirate," he relays.

Mycroft briefly looks up, nonplussed at his minor theatrics. "Indeed."

"I speak Baby, you know. Learned it in just a few hours."

His brother purses his lips, not even bothering to roll his eyes. "I'm sure."

"Oh, sit down, Mycroft. Hold your niece. She's light enough that even you can manage."

"Well, I don't–"

But before he can properly object, Sherlock tugs him off balance, settling him into the chair by the fireplace. He hands Anna off, placing her neatly in his brother's arm, ensuring her head is properly held. She fusses briefly before quickly settling in, finding herself quite content.

Mycroft gawks in silence. Eventually he manages, "I must say it, Sherlock. I never thought…" He trails off, thoughtful. A silence hangs between them. Something more than the sum of their familial or fraternal parts, always a solution equal parts rivalry and bitterness tinged with a dash of obligation, diluted by regret.

Finally Mycroft offers a somewhat terse, though seemingly heartfelt, "_Congratulations_."

* * *

Motherhood means waking at odd hours, accustomed to early morning feedings and a regularly interrupted sleep cycle. But tonight the monitor is quiet when she stirs. It is some dead hour, long before she needs to begin the day, and in her cozy little flat, all is still. A soft lamplight slips into her bedroom.

She pads softly to the doorframe. A lovely mobile of the solar system courtesy of Greg Lestrade – (_This one's Earth!_ reads the label above the little blue and green ball third out from the sun. Below it, one reads _That's for you and not the baby, Sherlock_) – rotates imperceptibly in the low light. Anna's bassinet is empty, and the reason for its vacancy is spread out on her sofa, fast asleep.

Toby curls comfortably on a pillow near his feet. Anna breathes softly, her hands clutching at the fabric of her father's shirt and head tucked under his chin. Sherlock anchors her against him with one hand, the other curled protectively around her skull.

Molly holds the perfection of the moment close. Had she a mind palace of her own, it would be first among her treasures.

* * *

She insists on keeping her flat. She has an obligation to be a strong, resourceful role model to her daughter, and she'll best do right by Anna as the professional, ever capable Dr. Molly Hooper and decidedly _not_ by becoming Sherlock's part-time live-in, cook, maid, and therapist cum baby mama. However much she has bowed to him in the past, she'll damn well hang on to some sense of independence. Of course, doesn't mean people agree with her. Mrs. Hudson in particular, who complains bitterly that she never gets to see Anna. But Molly won't be swayed.

"We're not in love and we aren't getting married. Honestly, I don't see what all the fuss is on about," she grouses to Mary when she pops round with David for tea and playtime. "It's not – I _am_ grateful for the way things are. He makes an effort, and he's...oddly involved. More than I expected. Always talking to her. Reading. Teaching her things. It's strange, and sort of... wonderful."

What Molly doesn't mention is that, in point of fact, Sherlock visits most nights, or she does him, and that when he isn't on a case, its rare he stays away. That from her vantage, domesticity looks as good on his broad shoulders as does a sheen of sweat or a good coat. That she knows the taste of his particular desire. That they didn't stop sleeping together after she got pregnant.

Mary eyes her. "You're still shagging him, aren't you?"

A nervous smile. "Who says we were? You know him. Not exactly the type for dating."

"Uh, yeah, he is," Mary corrects. "Only dates with him tend to involve murder and espionage rather than dinner and films. And you're avoiding my question."

"I told you we aren't–" Molly starts.

Mary gives her an impish grin and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, you did, love. But you also told people he was dead when he wasn't, so, mmm, you're record's just a tad spotty."

"Right." Hard to argue, that. Mary taps her fingers. Molly bites her lip, then nods her assent. Emphatically.

"_I knew it!_" Mary cries in delight. "You're way too happy a new parent to _not_ be getting righteously fucked on a regular basis." She glances down at her son, wincing. "Shit. Better not pick that one up when he decides to start talking." They look at each other and both burst out laughing. On the whole, being a single mum isn't so bad, Molly thinks.

Well, semi-single.

* * *

Anna is three months old when a minor thug called Alfie Howell breaks into her apartment and changes her mind. Sherlock Holmes wouldn't take his case, he explains from behind his gun. Molly grips the countertop behind her, her knuckles aching. The length of space of two small rooms – the distance between her and her daughter – has never loomed so long.

"He'll got no choice now, will 'e," Howell boasts, very much pleased by the creative flair of his ingenuity. He gestures with the gun at the kitchen table, where Molly's phone sits, before turning it through the door to her living room and on the bassinet where Anna is, mercifully, asleep. "Let's give 'im a ring, love."

She scowls, taking a deep breath. Panic won't do. "Sherlock," she says when he picks up.

There's a silence on the end of the line. "You're calling. You never call; you text because you know I prefer it. Molly, what's wrong?"

"There's someone in my apartment, Sherlock. Says he knows you."

"Are you and Anna alright?"

Howell grins. "Your birds is fine for now. But you, Mista Holmes, you're gonna get to working and find my money. Else I might just lose my patience with Mummy, here. Be a shame to mark up that face in front of the little one, dontcha fink?"

She sees fucking _red_.

He's an idiot, and arrogant to boot. He's not expecting a fight from her. No one ever expects a fight from her; nice girls don't cause trouble. But Molly Hooper has spent too much time in the light of Sherlock Holmes and he's burned the niceness out of her.

She needs only a second of her idiot captors inattention (_that's my girl_, she thinks when Anna starts wailing) to snatch a knife from the carving block her aunt gave her for Christmas some years ago. She never uses it. The blade is still very sharp.

She knows her way around a human body. One quick, hard jab and the knife slides neatly into Alfie Howell's left lung. If he's lucky the techs will arrive in time to intubate him before he drowns in his own blood. If not, well...He'll be unlucky, then.

_Thank you, Aunt Grace_, she thinks as he falls to the floor. She kicks the gun across the floor and drops the bloodied knife into the sink. Anna's wailing has grown louder, as if sensing her mother's distress and adding her own young but powerful voice in the attempts for help. Molly gathers her to her quickly, her shaking hands and arms holding her close, filling her nose with her sweet baby smell.

The gurgling sound of Alfie Howell bleeding out on her floor cannot be ignored, however once Molly moves with Anna in the living room. With her daughter's safety assured for now, her motherly instincts are assuaged enough that she could now focus on the call of her Hippocratic oath.

Grabbing a dish towel, Molly knelt down beside the bleeding man on her floor. This was a person that was dying and needed her help, not simply a person who had just threatened her and her child. She applied pressure on the wound. The crimson pool spreading across her kitchen tile is considerable, though she does her best to stop the bleeding

The sirens of help grow louder in the distance.

Molly did not wish for Alfie Howell to die, but she would later recall that she felt little remorse for her actions in the situation. He had threatened her daughter, and that had been the only thought that she'd been capable of processing in that moment.

Hands brush hers away from the bleeding wound as emergency responders take over. An inspector she's never met takes command of the scene. Everything seems out of focus until she feels a pair of rough hands pull her to her feet, the face of Sherlock Holmes the only clear thing in her vision. She's never seen the look on his face before.

"Never again," she hears him say, and it sounds like he's trying to make a promise.

And just like that, the cloud of shock lifts, and it all becomes clear again. Molly can hear Anna crying out for her and it takes Sherlock's strength to hold her back. She's about to claw his eyes out for keeping her there when he steers her to the sink, washing the blood of her hands and Molly manages to get control of herself again long enough to help him. As soon as the red is off, she's rushing to the officer holding her baby, nearly snatching her away, holding her tightly against her chest until Molly feels like she can breathe again.

Sherlock is before her again, his hands over her shoulder and pressed against Anna's back.

"Never again, Molly," he repeats himself and now she has no doubt that he's promising her something. "This will never happen again."

"You can't promise me that," Molly says. The sweet blow of Anna's breath sends goosebumps along her shoulder. She has fallen back to sleep. Molly looks up, into his face, so beautiful and, times, so guarded. "Safety not guaranteed, Sherlock Holmes."

He pauses, considering her words. "Then let me promise to always be there when you are in need of it," he answers. She supposes that is the best he can offer. They look to their child, her eyes closed in sleep, occupied by dreams.

This is how Sherlock Holmes convinces Molly Hooper to live with him at Baker Street.

* * *

A few months later:

"Oh, _hell_," Sherlock says, rolling his eyes and collapsing back in his chair. "Really?"

"Indeed," Molly replies, overwhelmed. She sinks into the armchair opposite.

"This is _your_ doing," Sherlock scowls at Anna's bassinet. "Entirely too much estrogen – _and_ oxytocin – in this flat."

Molly turns her chin in hand, meeting his eye. _Not good_.

"Well," he says eventually. "I suppose a second trial couldn't hurt."

She shares the news with John over horrid coffee in the hospital caf some days later. "At least we know what to expect this time."

"Not exactly planned, I take it?" He asks.

"Oh God," Molly replies. She threads her fingers through her hair, feeling a bit hysterical. "Is any of it?"

John Hooper Holmes is born six and a half months later. His elder sister greatly approves.

* * *

_Not long after Molly's engagement dissolved, John went on honeymoon, leaving Sherlock temporarily without a shadow. He was not particularly aggrieved, however, at being forced to turn to Molly for help once more._

_"I need a companion," he said, when met with her (rather weak) protestations concerning a marathon of Doctor Who. She snorted by way of response, but retrieved her awful scarf and tote."What's a madman with a cap over a madman with a box, I suppose." _

_By the early hours of the next day, they'd ended up soaked to the bone, following a killer's trail down the ancient course of the Fleet River, deep below London. In an unguarded moment, their quarry sprang from hiding and after knocking the gun from Sherlock's hand, attempted to shatter his skull with lead piping. _

_Molly shot the perpetrator at some miraculous middle distance, proving to have precision – chance though it may be – that went above and beyond her usual talents with a scalpel. (And even if she wasn't nearly as good as John, well, then, John was usually able to properly see his targets, for the most part). _

_She looked horrified by her actions for one long, suspended moment as the sound of the gunshot rattled around in their ears, but recovered herself quickly._

_"Are you alright?" She'd asked, dropping to his side to assess him for injury. _

_"Fine," he replied as she helped him up. He found he was shocked as much by the sight of a weapon in the good Dr. Hooper's hand as he was by the skill with which she had discharged it. _

_"Lucky shot," she says, her voice rising in question. _

_"Yup." _

_She considered it, stupefied. "Well," she said, after a fact. "At least the autopsy will be easy." _

_They looked at one another, and as he considered the tiny, bedraggled woman at his side who'd just saved his life (again), the absurdity of her statement came over him. He laughed. A low chuckle that grew louder, echoing through the old, unused places of London (and some parts of himself as well). _

_Molly stared, then smiled and shook her head. She let out a breath of relief, letting the some of the tension of their chase melt away. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. _

_"Molly Hooper," he smiled. "Pathologist by day, crack assassin by night. Well done." _

_"No wonder John's gone gray." She tossed her scarf – by now beyond repair - into the Fleet, letting the dark, fetid waters carry it to places unknown. "This part-time work is terrible."_


	2. Chapter 2

_"So," she asked, standing in his dimlit kitchen. "How to do we, ah, proceed? Logistically, I mean. With options. How is this going to...work." She swallowed audibly. _

_"Mmm," Sherlock hummed, noncommittal. "Pass me that," he said, and pulled a secondary pair of lab goggles from the cabinet, handed them to her. He pointed between a graduated cylinder and a solution in an Erlenmeyer flask. "Complexometric titration." _

_"Okay, which dye?" _

_"Eriochrome Black, over there." _

_She set about the task. "It's just, I don't want you to feel compelled to do anything you don't want to, and there's certainly lots of, um, methods that we could use. If you haven't reconsidered. Which I hope you haven't, but if you did, I'd, well, I'd understand." _

_"You're rambling again." _

_She was silent for a while. "I know I'm rambling. I don't know why. I haven't done that around you in years. I'm nervous. And...puzzled, I guess. About why you're doing this."_

_Molly looked over the table at him, hesitant. _

_"Because I want to."_

_She nodded, digesting that. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet and thoughtful, as if she was talking to herself. "It's just–I never imagined that you'd want children of your own," she said, finally. _

_"I don't," Sherlock answered. As he spoke, the reaction in her flask began to take place. As usual, Molly's measurements were spot-on. The blue-tinted solution turned totally colorless in an instant. Perfect compound stability. _

_She frowned, more baffled than ever. He wasn't saying it correctly; not good. Removed his goggles and hers, setting them aside. He looked into her face, trying for the words that would make her see as he saw. Make the solution clear. "I want yours." _

_Molly's confusion melted away. He kissed her. _

* * *

It's evening when he arrives back at Baker Street. He has not been home for more than four days. Gradient light emanates from the bedroom, falling across the battered kitchen floor. He lingers in the bedroom doorway as if he were a visitor, not wanting to trespass on this moment's territory. It's been years now, but at times he still feels like he could not possibly belong to _this_.

Molly sits against the headboard of their bed. Snuggled into the duvet, Jack snores softly to her left, one small fist against his mouth. On her right, Anna is curled against her thigh, her black hair fanned out, a corona of tangled darkness. Molly's threadbare Cambridge t-shirt hangs off one shoulder. Her hodgepodge, make-do wardrobe has never improved; somehow the fact of it endears her more to him now, as do the running shorts and dark blue knee socks she's wearing.

He's been gone for four days and on the far side of a frustrating case those socks do things to him that Smartwool should not inspire. He drinks in the details like a man deprived of water: Messy bun coupled with tortoiseshell glasses. Her tongue curling around a pen that hangs from one corner of her mouth. In her lap, a half-edited draft of the article she's been working on for _Human Pathology_.

However long Sherlock Holmes has called Baker Street home, it had never been the comfort, the refuge, that it is until now. _Until her_. He paces to the end of the bed, crouching at mattress level, steeples his hands below his chin, committing everything to his memories.

"Did you solve it?" Molly asks, quietly, not looking up.

"Yes."

"Satisfied?"

"As much as can be expected," he answers. And truthfully, though he craves it, the pleasure, the thrill of the chase, is not the rush it once was. Not when it keeps him away so much, for so long. Rising, he lifts Jack up, and slides in next to her. His son snuffles against his neck, turns over and breathes softly once more.

"Time that one went down," she says, quiet.

Sherlock Holmes has known Molly Hooper for seven years, eight months, seventeen days and some-odd hours. As she turns to him, she looks younger now, somehow. The soft light, perhaps, or maybe some factor that he's not considered. Good genes. Facial creme. Happiness.

He plucks the glasses off the bridge of her nose and kisses her deeply.

He did not ever, not _once_, expect this.

* * *

Being a parent is, in near to equal parts, at times messy, tiresome, frustrating and _noisy_, but Sherlock also finds it full of unexpected pleasures. In short, he finds it to be interesting, for which he is immensely grateful, given that of all difficult situations he has sorted himself into, fatherhood would certainly prove the most impossible to extricate himself from. Not that he would dream of it.

"Daddy."

His daughter perches in the armchair once occupied by John Watson - which Anna regards purely as _her armchair_, thank you very much - and peers at him over the pages of her book. In her calm, quiet (_bored_) little-girl voice, she inquires, "May we have target practice now?"

Sherlock's eyes light up. "Love to, darling," he says, and all but leaps out of his chair. "Do you know, I think target practice is the best idea I've ever had."

"It was my idea," she corrects, setting her book aside (_Planetary geology? Useless. Boring. Frivolous._) climbing down to the floor.

He gives her a deliberately puzzled look. "I'm sure it wasn't," he teases.

"Yes," she insists in her fiercest, crossest voice. "It _was_." He grins, delighted to see his daughter refusing to play the mousey part that her mother did for years around him. And hadn't _that_ been a waste.

He helps her into her coat before folding into his own. "Mittens, please," she says, pointing to the ones without fingers. She asks for the satchel on the shelf containing her blue pocket torch, map of London, sunglasses, magnifying lens, Oyster card, five quid, and her slingshot. "In case there is a crime," she explains. "And the Detective Inspector asks us to help."

Times, he simply marvels at her perfection.

"Anna, please do me a favor," Sherlock says, holding the door for her.

"What?" She looks up at him, adjusting the deerstalker hat he gave her.

Sherlock drops down to her eye level. "Never, _ever_ change."

* * *

John Watson has a running list of the most bizarre aspects of Sherlock Holmes' experiment in parenthood. He is forever amending it, jostling the order around to account for some strange new oddity. Sitting on the sill at 221B – beside a tall, brightly decorated Christmas tree that, once, he would have bet his life would never be found in a flat also occupied by Sherlock Holmes – he mentally adds a new entry. _December the 25th_, John thinks, _Mycroft's unmitigated adoration of his niece and nephew. _

"Uncle Mycroft!" Anna exclaims happily.

"Off," Jack agrees, reaching from his perch in Sherlock's arms.

"Children," Mycroft says, smiling. He pats their heads and looks genuinely pleased to greet them. "Enjoying your holiday?"

"No," Anna says, ever blunt for a five-year-old.

"Why not?"

"David broke my torch," she scowls, her eyes flickering to John's offending son, who is making his best attempt to extricate a rib from a man's chest cavity. The game kept beeping. Right, so. Not a surgeon, probably.

"Well that certainly wasn't very kind of him," Mycroft answers with affront on his niece's behalf. "What happened?"

"He bit it."

"Bit it, did you say?"

Anna looks plaintively up at him, her lip wavering. _Brilliant play_, John thinks. "I only wanted to see his intestines. Just a _little_."

John takes a sip of his whiskey and scowls at Sherlock. "It _would_ involve your daughter, my son getting his teeth knocked out of his head for the first time."

Sherlock blinks slowly back at him, resting his chin on his son's head. "Baby teeth fall out, John. He'll be in perfect dental health in no time."

_Bugger_, John thinks.

"You realize," Molly whispers later as Mycroft charms his way into Anna and David's hearts with sugar, "your brother is teaching them to be his spies. Which, I might point out, may well end up a prelude to training them as _actual_ spies?"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry," Sherlock answers.

"Well done," Mycroft tells Anna after a game of deductions, slipping her a sweet. When her uncle reaches for his tea, Anna winks at her father, pocketing the candy.

Sherlock grins, devious. "I believe we have the makings of at least one double agent."

_God help us_, John thinks.

* * *

From down the stairs in the living room, Molly can hear that negotiations with the devious mastermind are not going well.

"Let us make a deal," Sherlock growls through his teeth. "I will tell you a story, after which you will go to bed _and remain in it_ for the duration of the night."

She suppresses a laugh, remembering the horrified look on his face when Jack had interrupted them the week before.

Jack pushes back with his own terms. "I get to choose the story."

"Suitable enough," Sherlock agrees.

"Tell me Star Wars."

"No, films do not count as 'bedtime stories,'" Sherlock says, annoyed. "Plus, dull. Chronicles of Narnia?"

"No."

"Where the Wild Things Are?"

"We did that one last night."

"Fine, how about I _tell_ you a story."

"One of your cases?" Jack mulls this idea over.

"How about the time I went to Buckingham Palace naked?"

Jack huffs. "I know that one."

_He does?_ Molly thinks. _I don't even know that one._

"The case of the murderous, mystery hounds of Baskerville?"

"No."

"The time your mother dated a notorious criminal ringleader?"

"NO!" Molly calls from the couch.

"Cases are boring," Jack decides.

"Boring!?"

"So boring."

"Fine. No story. Just bed. Goodnight."

"But our deal!"

"Let that be a lesson to get it in writing next time," Sherlock says. "Lest I get annoyed at you and reneg." He pauses a moment. "Goodnight, I love you."

Jack's only response it a groan of grumbled outrage.

_Are you sure he's my son?_ says the look on Sherlock's face when he stalks down the stairs.

"Did you really go to Buckingham Palace naked?" Molly asks, looking up from her email.

"Of course I did. Wanted to annoy Mycroft," he explains. "Well, mostly naked," he amends. "I had a sheet." She gives him a dubious look to which he replies, "Ask John."

He eases into the couch beside her. For all the years he could flit about on caffeine alone for days on end, he's taken to sleeping the grateful sleep of the parental whenever he can get it. He leans into her shoulder and murmurs against her bare skin.

"Nicked an ashtray too."

* * *

Around the time she first encountered Sherlock Holmes, Molly Hooper's life began to deviate from a well-ordered linear progress into wild curves with uncertain asymptotes. Where she once fallen somewhere in the vicinity of _nauseatingly average_, she now exists purely in the realm of _utterly bizarre and occasionally infuriating but for the most part spectacularly wonderful. _

Which is why she's not entirely surprised to come up the stairs into her home to discover utter mayhem. "Sherlock, what in God's name–"

He has one of her scarves tied around his head and brandishes an umbrella (one rather suspiciously like Mycroft's) like a rapier. Jack sits in the cutout door of a cardboard box covered in blue construction paper. His Darth Vader helmet reflects green when he thumbs his sonic screwdriver toward the ceiling. "We are pirates and sellswords, Molly!" Everything is in disarray.

"Thought you were on a case?" She says, piling her things onto a kitchen chair.

"Solved it. Ludicrously easy. Jack helped."

_Honest to God_. She takes a long deep breath. "Tell me you didn't bring our four-year-old son to a crime scene."

He made a face. "Of course I didn't."

_Good_.

"I brought _both_ of our children. I couldn't very well leave Anna on her own."

"You could," Anna chimes from her hiding places behind the armchair.

"I really couldn't," Sherlock insists.

"Why?"

Sherlock shrugs, hypothesizing. "You might drink acid."

"Why would I drink acid?" Anna asks, finding his theory ridiculous.

"I don't know. That's why I can't leave you alone." He smiles, proud, as if to say _Look at my very good parenting skills, Molly!_

Molly sighs, giving him a look of her own that says plainly, _We will discuss this later_.

Anna jumps up on the chair, brandishes Captain America's shield and yells, "IT'S SMAUG! THE DRAGON IS COMING!"

"Come, Molly! Be a proper villain!" Sherlock calls, and leaps onto the couch, fending off an invisible beast. "God save the Queen!"

"God save the Queen!" His children holler, raising a charge up into his arms.

No heart should be able to stand such joy, Molly Hooper thinks, and roars hers out as only a fire-breathing monster could.

Though, if happiness could kill, no doubt Sherlock Holmes would discover precisely how.

* * *

It's all the ways they _aren't_ strange that are most interesting to John Watson. Sherlock has tea parties with his daughter, for one. As would most normal fathers. Almost.

"Nice tutu," John says, pointedly. "Lovely eye-patch you're sporting there, Anna."

"Thank you," Sherlock says over the rim of his teacup. "Darling, say, 'Thank you, John, my eye-patch is quite roguish, isn't it?'"

"Thank you, John," Anna Holmes says, absently. She's far more concerned with mixing the exact proper of milk into her tea. Her parents' child, clearly.

"And you're wearing a tutu why, exactly?" John asks.

Sherlock sips his tea. "Why not? Why shouldn't I wear a tutu? What do we says about men who wear tutus, Anna? Or women who choose to become pirates for that matter."

"Gender is a construct," Anna says, primly setting a teacup in front of Buzz Lightyear, who is currently sporting Barbie's feather boa. Presumably Barbie made a better Jedi Knight than a socialite, by the lightsaber taped to her plastic hand.

John set his hands on his hips, shaking his head. "Empowered little one, isn't she?"

"Delightfully so," Sherlock grins. "I love parenthood. Molding young minds is fascinating, don't you think?"

"Just what I came here to talk to you about, actually." His mouth twitches as he figures out how to comport himself. "Apparently Anna and David had a bit of a run in last week."

"A run in?"

"A row. A tiff. A fight."

"Did you?" Sherlock sets his tea down. Resting his elbows on his knees, he considers his daughter. Anna blinks at him, her expression inscrutable to John's eyes, but clearly not to Sherlock. "Oh, Anna," he tuts. "Not nice."

"It was just a _little_ snake," she protests. "I needed it for my experiment."

"And what did you learn?"

Anna makes a sour, snooty face. "Boys are daft."

"True," Sherlock says, glancing at John, delighted. _She is fantastic! Is she not fantastic, John? _his expression says. John shakes his head. _Not good._

Sherlock rolls his eyes, but seems to grasp his meaning. "But all the same," he amends. "David is your friend, and friends don't do not nice things to one another. You'll apologize to him."

"Fine," she says wearily, and holds out her hand. Sherlock passes her his mobile.

"You're a weird family," John says to Molly as she comes through the door with their youngest.

"We are, aren't we?" Molly replies, looking quite pleased to say it.

"Boom!" Jack says, from the kitchen.

Molly's happy expression flickers into a weary sort of amusement. "Excuse me. My son needs reminding about Rule #1 of 221B Baker St."

"Do unto others…?" John ventures.

"No," Sherlock says, rounding the corner with Anna upside down over his shoulder, texting. He looks deeply annoyed. "No fires in rooms without fireplaces," he grumbles. "So unfair."

_Should have thought of that one when I lived here_, John thinks.

* * *

"Oh, sorry," Molly says to John, apologetic as she turns down dinner plans. "Ordinarily we'd love to join you, but it's date night."

"No, no problem," he says. Then, because he can't just _not_ ask, says, "I'm sorry, I just...What do you do on date nights?"

Molly blinks. "Well. There's the experiments. Sometimes Sherlock cooks. Play board games," she says, going through some mental list. "Whatever strikes the mood: Go on walking tours. Get me out of my clothes. Check his maths. Jiujitsu. Watch baby animal videos. It's sweet. Just lovely." She smiles brightly.

John's mouth forms words that make no sound. _How–? What–?_ It's like his worldview has gone completely off-axis. White is black. Black is rainbows. England's won the World Cup.

Her tongue rolls against her cheek. He realizes she's trying very hard not to laugh.

Penny drops. "You," he says, exhaling through his nostrils, "are having me on."

"Yeah," Molly nods, her button nose scrunching in sympathy.

"You _trolled_ me."

"I did. Tiny bit." She agrees.

He scowls and Molly smacks him in the leg, laughing. "John Watson! I mean really! _Walking tours?_" She glances over to Sherlock. "You owe me a tenner."

"Ten points to Gryffindor," Sherlock says, and some far part of John's mind finds it absolutely madly hilarious that the world's only consulting detective reads Harry Potter. "Though the part about taking your clothes off was entirely accurate," Sherlock offers, not looking up from his experiment.

"I also check his maths. Usually in that order," Molly says, sounding smug.

Aaaaand that was enough. "Right. Algorithmic pillow talk. Whatever. You two deserve each other. I'll be going now."

"Oh, but John," Molly says, earnestly. _Too_ earnestly. "_Do_ come by tomorrow night for dinner. Sherlock's making paella!" She dissolves into laughter before she can finish. John rolls his eyes, gathers his coat and waves the pair of them off.

"You're a corrupting influence, Sherlock," he calls.

"Me?" Sherlock looks up sharply. "I hardly think that's fair to say. Particularly concerning matters of virtue, which if we're picking those apart, then she's _by far_ the more–"

"Not listening anymore!" John shakes his head and bounds down the stairs, quick as he can, doing his best to avoid thinking about what constitutes 'date night' in the Holmes-Hooper household.

* * *

The pair of them join forces on a carefully plotted and strategic initiative. Sherlock, overgrown child that he is, is instantly ready to give into their demands. He's certainly the softer touch, of the two of them (though would be loathe to admit it). Molly, as per usual, isn't quite as willing to cave.

"I thought you weren't supposed to negotiate with terrorists," she says, getting ready for bed one evening.

"Mmm, no," Sherlock says over his phone. "You always negotiate with terrorists. Especially the terrorists who want puppies."

"Well I think you're _barking_ to consider it," she says to him, laughing at her own (admittedly terrible) joke. She can practically hear his eyes roll.

It quickly becomes apparent that although their plan has thus far been unsuccessful, Anna and Jack have set in for a long campaign. By month three of the siege she's almost ready to give in just to keep them from texting her – literally so – every five minutes. The phone bills have gotten outrageous.

She must be losing her mind, she tells Mary over a glass of wine one evening. "Nah," Mary says, grinning. "You lost that years ago. I'd say round the time you decided you'd rather get Sherlock in your knickers rather kick him out of your lab."

Mary is quite right, as usual. And so, Molly concedes her fight.

"What do you think you'll call him?" Sherlock asks, sitting on the floor with the newest member of Baker Street scampering around his new home. The black-furred pup trips over himself left and right, and before long has laid waste to an offending throw pillow, tearing it nearly in half.

"Oh, I should think that would be obvious," Molly says from the door.

Suddenly alert, he looks between her and the children. "Why?" Anna and Jack grin at one another, their typical _Dad's missed something_ behavior.

Sherlock relaxes. "Oh, wait, no. I don't care. Nevermind."

"No fun. Why the change of heart?" Anna pouts.

"Something that the three of you see that I don't." He rolls his eyes. "Has to be pop culture. _Please_ tell me its Kanye."

"No. It's got to be Ripper," Jack says. "_Obviously_."

* * *

"Mummy," Anna says, coming up to Molly in the kitchen. At seven years old, she is the picture of her father. Tall for her age, pale; quiet only to the edge of frustration, at which point her fits are impressive. But her daughter possesses emotional intelligence than Sherlock lacks, especially toward her brother, who she is both deeply protective of as well as his greatest tormenter. The birthright of eldest siblings.

"Jack has a photographic memory," Anna says, as if commenting on the weather or what she would like for her birthday.

Sherlock catches her eye over the edge of his mobile. "Oh? Why do you think that?" Molly says, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I tested him. I showed him timetables. He remembered them all."

"That's not quite–"

"All nine hundred and eleven pages of the National Railway schedule."

_Oh_, she can practically hear Sherlock's thoughts. _Interesting. _

"I think we should be careful with him," Anna says.

"What makes you say that, darling?" Molly asks, looking to her daughter's composed, but concerned face.

Anna's slender shoulders lift in a shrug. "Some things would be bad to have in your head, always. Mean things," she says, looking pointedly at her father, whose cutting tone she has more than once observed. "And dead people," she says, looking pointedly at her mother, whose profession Anna has never enjoyed. "May I have a biscuit?" She asks, apropos of nothing.

"Just the one," Molly answers, hugging her daughter to her side and ruffling her hair. Long and straight, like Molly's own, though dark and thick, like Sherlock's.

_My strange and brilliant and totally bizarre children,_ Molly thinks. She catches herself saying it out loud to herself at times. It becomes kind of prayer. A substitute for the _So help me, Sherlock Holmes_ she used to mutter to herself while at Barts. But it's also a statement of wonder.

Mary Watson overhears her one day and laughs. "God knows they come by it honestly!"

* * *

"Got you a present."

He narrows his eyes. "Why?"

"Because I like you, on occasion," Molly says.

Sherlock shrugs. "I might feel something in the way of similarity. On occasion." His mouth twists in a smile. "Shall we swap?"

Molly has half a mind to tease him about sentimentality but she bites her lip and holds her tongue, choosing instead to savour the moment rather than harp on its rarity. "Let's."

He presents her with a file folder as she hands him a plain white envelope. No wristwatches and jewelry for them. Sherlock grabs a dagger from the shelf and methodically tears into it. She waits, wanting to watch him work it out.

"Tickets to…" He looks up, no doubt calculating the exact degree of smug enjoyment on her face. "_Three_ ticket to Les Mis. But they're not for me and not for you, are they," he says.

"Nope," Molly smiles.

"One is for Jack. One is for Anna."

"Who has recently developed _such_ an interest in musical theater that she knows every–"

"–ghastly–"

"–word of every–"

"–_horrid_–"

"–song."

She grins. "And the last one is for dear Uncle Mycroft , who just couldn't say no when Anna _begged_ him to be their chaperone. For Thursday next. Happy non-versary."

Sherlock makes a ferocious noise and tackles her off the chair. "Oh, I do love you when you are _wicked_," he growls against her throat. "Scoundrels?"

"221C. Schoolwork. Which they never actually have to do, it would seem. So watching Netflix, I'd expect. They ended season two of _Battlestar Galactica_ yesterday evening, and the first half of the season three is notoriously good. Two-part premiere at 43 minutes each, factor in Jack's obsession with pilots and Anna's obsession with space means they probably have three episodes minimum in them today. Won't be hungry because of the the biscuits they nicked from the kitchen after they got home…" she glances at her watch. "So, we should have an hour and forty minutes to ourselves."

She wraps her arms around his neck. "Also for good measure, I locked them out."

"Molly Hooper." He presses his forehead to hers. "You are brilliant."

"Not exactly the science of deduction, but logistics I can manage." Bending down, he scoops her up. "Wait, I didn't get to open your gift," she objects.

"Doesn't matter. Yours is better," Sherlock grunts, carrying her to the bedroom.

"But I want to know what mine is!"

"Deed," he says, depositing her on the bed and attempting to divest her of her clothes.

"Deed?" She repeats, words muffled against his mouth. "As in something you've done or something you've owned?" Molly asks, kicking her jeans off and lifting her sweater over her head.

"Something _we_ own, as a matter of fact," Sherlock grins, crawling over her, tracing a fingertip from her ankle to her throat before threading his fingers in her hair.

Her skin flushes with desire, but she manages a hoarse, "What?"

"221 Baker Street."

* * *

"No, it's not," Jack states, letting Ripper off his leash.

"Yes, it is," Anna argues.

"It's really not."

"It _really_ is."

Molly looks wearily up at him. "Will they _ever_ get tired of bickering?"

Sherlock clasps his hands behind his back. "Oh, I imagine around the same time Mycroft and I tire of it. Which is to say, never."

Molly's eyes crinkle. Her eyes follow her children as they wander the path ahead, transfixed. "Do you ever look at them and wonder," she asks, learning into Sherlock, "how it is that they could possibly belong to you?" There are times she sees so little of herself in her children. It's how they hold themselves with such easy grace and poise, possessing casual self-awareness and natural confidence, too. It's a joy and a marvel, and a puzzle. Such is life. Especially theirs.

Ripper sets off after a pigeon, and Anna tears after him like a comet, her brother close on her tail. They tackle him into a pile of leaves, giggling and laughing in the last rays of the autumn sunshine. David Watson leaps into the fray, sending Anna head over heels. He and Jack bury her under a deluge of leaves. For a moment they are almost hard to see, the air around them is so full of bright, flashing fall colors and the sinking, golden glare of sun. The park is loud with their laughter. Mary and John wave from down the path, approaching. Between them, their absurdist tornado of children.

Sherlock squeezes her hand, that enigmatic smile at the corner of his mouth. "Constantly," he replies.

* * *

_"Hi," she said. Molly tossed her hat on the chair. "Back." _

_"Any stunningly helpful recommendations on procreation from the good doctor this time?" Sherlock turned off his blowtorch and looked up, a set of tongs in one hand._

_"No." Molly folded her hands across her middle, swallowing. _

_He paused. "No?" _

_"No," she said, and bit her lip. _

_"I thought–" He frowned, considering his words. "I thought, being a fertility expert, he'd have some actual expertise to call on. No?" _

_"No." _

_"Then what use is he?" Sherlock said, annoyed. _

_She took a short, desperate little breath.. "You misunderstand. He didn't have anything to offer because–" The shock fell away, and she felt, oh, just, _filled_ by the joy of it. "I didn't need it. I'm pregnant." _

_He stared at her, confused. She burst a little with laughter, both at his face and at the whole idea of it all. Of him standing here in his lounge, in his housecoat and doing mad science things with tongs, here in the kitchen. Meanwhile another, very small mad scientist was at work growing inside her. Molly laughed, because – _oh fuck, this is really happening,_ she thought - what else could she do? _

_Sherlock remained silent. _

_"Just so you know, he sometimes does this thing," John had told her once, early on. "When he can't handle an emotion, it's like his mental bandwidth gets all tied up. His brain is basically buffering, I think." _

_Molly wiped at her eyes, and turned on the tea kettle. Some cells had merged and divided in her uterus, and life with this bizarre and brilliant man was not going to change because of it. In all likelihood her life would only exponentially become more bizarre. She smiled, dialed down the gas flow on the bunsen burner. More brilliant. _

_After a moment, he shook his head and, throwing his tongs and blowtorch aside, bodily forced her out of the kitchen and slammed the lounge doors closed. _

_"Out!" _

_"Why?" _

_"Chemicals!" _

_"What are–"_

_"OUT!" _

_He slammed the second kitchen door. _

_"You ruined your experiments," she said, sometime later, after he'd sealed up the hydrochloric acid, poured beakers of an array of colors down the drain and blow-torched the contents of several dozen petri dishes full of God-knew-what. He slid in next to her on the sofa and Molly perched her chin upon his shoulder. _

_"As it happens, I have a better one in progress," he said. And smiled. It struck suddenly her then that what he meant was not simply getting pregnant: it was having a child. With her. That he meant to be a part of all this. She marveled at the wonder of it. _

_He tucked her hair behind her ear, still smiling, but just barely. It was more in his eyes than the curve of his mouth. She was reminded so clearly of that day he'd taken her to solve crimes, after he'd returned from the dead._

_"Congratulations, Molly Hooper," he said. This impossible, impossible man. _

_"And to you, Sherlock," she said, gazing up at him. They had never given a name to what it was between them; perhaps there wasn't one. Nonetheless, their combination had been a transformative one. She was a stronger sort of Molly; he'd become a more open, more changeable man. Someone able to bend, able to give. _

_Her leaned over and kissed her, a soft, sweet brushing of lips that seemed almost dreamlike, and so romantic. She'd never imagined him kissing like this, before. _

_How can this be, Molly Hooper thought to herself, climbing properly into his lap, slipping her arms around his neck and snogging him senseless. How in the world can this be? _

_Sherlock Holmes, for once, had no objections._


	3. Chapter 3

_When it came to Sherlock Holmes, "experimenting" covered all manner of sins._

_He lifted her on the countertop, pinning her below him so her head was up against the wall between the underused range and a cupboard full of empty chemical detritus. She swung one leg over his shoulder, fingertips of one hand pressed hard into the skin of her hip. With his other he was slowly driving her mad. _

_Molly rolled her hips against his thumb, desperate for greater stimulation than the selfish bastard was willing to provide at the moment. A low, frustrated keening sound ripped from her throat as he reached up her skirt, running his long, perfect fingers against her clit, teasing her very, very deliberately. He at least had the sense to undo her bright blue polka dotted blouse, the one that's filled out nicely since her breasts all but doubled in size, and seemed content to devour her undoing with his eyes. _

_"Sherlock," she gasped as he slipped one, _one_, finger just barely inside her. _

_"More?" he asked. His voice was teasing, but she could hear the catch in his throat, the husky wanting he did not admit to. Not to anyone but her. _

_"Ooh, yes," Molly gasped. His other hand slid up from her hip, drawing feather light patterns over the small swell of her stomach. She arched against him, gasping a short, shuddering breath that caught half in her throat. Bliss that it was, she couldn't wait. She couldn't go without a moment longer. Her hands scrabbled desperately at him, making quick work of his trousers and pants. Face to face, he held her eyes, and the intensity of it was somehow even more profound than the feeling of him filling her. _

_It had shocked her, this. Even after she got pregnant, he still showed up at her door on nights when she was cold and lonely. He was ready with mouthwash in hand after the worst of the morning sickness hit, and within reach when the hormones had her dizzy with desire. He was there when she was sore and tired, and deeply, alarmingly happy. _

_He sighed into her mouth, his earlier teasing gone, replaced by a languid tenderness that passed between them in long, slow kisses and easy, unhurried movement. It was nothing like the raw kinetic rush of that first time, back when they had so much to learn about each other, and with him working against a fairly steep learning curve. But he was a quick study, the clever boy. By the way he touched her now, she'd swear he had committed her every nerve ending to memory. "Yes," she groaned again, her teeth scraping his shoulder. He slid his tongue along her collarbone and neck. Her bare feet gripped at his hips, tugging him closer, to the edge of his control, to the edge of hers. _

_I am so screwed, Molly thought, breathless. It couldn't last, she told herself. She couldn't dare to dream it. _

_Could she?_

* * *

Anna and David are eight, Jack seven, when the odd, insular order of their world falls apart.

Like so many cases, it begins with a text.

From: AHH  
Message sent 15:34

_WH7689 hel0_

Sherlock Holmes rises from his chair in a sudden, leonine movement. He stares at the screen, stricken. Possibilities riot through his mind: a string of endless alphanumeric permutations and their variable likelihoods. _Call_. Anna's mobile does not pick up. Jack's goes straight to voice messaging. Disconcertingly, so does David Watson's.

Something is wrong. He has a line to his brother in seconds.

"Mycroft," he says as he races to the desk, calling up the GPS locator tool on his laptop. The locator beacon hovers on the last known location of Jack and Anna's mobiles–Baker Street–as it recalculates the new positioning.

"Sherlock to what–"

The image location resolves...definitely not on the children's school grounds.

"_Regina_." He all but shouts the code word they decided upon nearly a decade before. "For God's sakes, Mycroft: _Regina_."

Silence hangs on the end of the line for endless, interminable seconds. "Regina is go."

A feeling of deep fear settles in the pit of his stomach at the slight waver in his brother's voice. _The British Government is afraid_.

"Tell me everything you know."

* * *

The facts are these:

One. His children have been stolen from their school grounds in the broad, bustling daylight of Central London. As has David Watson.

Two. CCTV footage shows an unidentifiable man driving a gray lorry from the premises in the moments after he received Anna's text. The vehicle license matches the string of numbers and letters in Anna's text.

Three. Their mobiles, along with backpacks and shoes have located via GPS in a meadow in Barnes Common, far from the Hammersmith grounds of Latymer Upper School.

Four. Sherlock Holmes has many enemies, but few so bold as to attempt something so foolish as kidnapping Mycroft Holmes' niece and nephew. It only takes one to try.

(Five. He cannot look his best friend or his wife–cannot look Molly–in the eye.)

* * *

Molly Hooper's short nails press hard into the skin of her arms, leaving crescent moons that bloom bright with blood. She paces the floor of Greg Lestrade's office, incapable of remaining still. She feels hollowed out. Boneless and weak, her head cloudy and out of focus. Her head aches. Her mind whirls, scattered and desperate. She feels, in the same moment, as though she is ten drinks in, as well as the horrible weight of the morning after. Madness, she thinks. I'm going to go insane.

From the moment she saw him shove through the lab door, hours earlier that afternoon, she knew. She has always been able to see the emotions Sherlock Holmes was unable to voice, and in that moment, his silence had been _screaming_.

She balls her hands in futile fists, throat aching under the strain of wanting very much to cry her heart out, and not.

Something of this magnitude has been coming for a long time, lingering out of sight, over the horizon, in other hours and days and years. Waiting for the opportune moment to destroy the life they have built. Mary brings her a cup of tea that she does not want, and hovers by her side as they stare through the glass windows to the operations room.

By all outward appearances, Mary Watson and Molly Hooper are very different women—extrovert vs introvert; trained disconnection vs inherent empathy; blonde vs brunette; Stones vs Beatles. It was a small wonder of the universe that they chanced to love the men they did, as the great friendship between John and Sherlock allowed them to discover one of their own.

Sisters, Meena had told her during on some long-forgotten occasion when she was, at once, both supremely grateful for and deeply aggravated by her elder sibling, were extraordinary people in the sense that they almost always had several hundred thousand ways of illustrating just how wildly, utterly, _maddeningly_ different they were from you. And yet by some miracle could always be counted on, could always be called upon to demonstrate their true and meaningful qualities that revealed the myriad differences for what they really were: insignificant.

Molly reaches out to her friend–the closest thing to a sister she will ever have–and takes her hand hand, gripping it hard. Mary does not react for a long, silent moment. The deadly calm that has radiated off her in the last, long and terrible hours gives way. Mary turns, and Molly sees all that is tearing through her echoed back in the look they exchange. Any words they might say are pointless; there is nothing that can do justice to the primal, desperate hurricane of fear and rage and hurt battering at heart, mind, and soul. Molly is painfully aware of all that she has taken for granted each day for the last ten years.

She wants to straighten the knocker of 221, and rise the steps to a messy flat, with Jack splayed out on the sofa, foot tapping time on the arm while he devours a trashy pulp-crime novel or the life story of Billy the Kid. A sucker for Westerns her son. She wants David to bound up the stairs with his parents in tow. She wants Anna to follow, dramatically sinking into a chair and groaning in soreness from her martial arts class until David and Jack distract her with some new game of their own devising, or campy old episodes of classic sci-fi programmes they've dug up online.

She wants Anna to threaten to use what's she's learned in krav maga or muy thai on her brother.

She wants Jack to blare Scandinavian death metal and Korean pop to annoy his sister.

She wants David to charm them all back into each other's good graces with his great humor and quick laugh.

She wants Sherlock to antagonize them with his oddly sweet and bratty brand of intellectual affection as he deduces how they've (mis)spent their days.

She wants John and Mary bickering in the background, gently teasing each other as is their manner, and Mrs. Hudson puttering around, clucking at them all.

Because, anything else is simply unimaginable. Anything else—

She bends at the waist, unable to _breathe_.

"We'll find them," Mary says, squeezing her shoulder, unwilling to let go. "I swear to God Molly," she sucks in a breath, promising. _Promising_. "We _will_. And if I personally have to pull the trigger, I will end whoever is responsible. That's a promise." Molly bites her lip, holding in the staggering forces of grief tearing through her. She wants to believe her friend.

But Molly Hooper also remembers the fear in Sherlock Holmes eyes the day a very stupid and very desperate man tried to use her and Anna as leverage against him. She is certain the people who have stolen her children are nothing like Alfie Howell had been. Are not stupid. Are not desperate. Sherlock made her a promise once, too:

_I may not always be able to guarantee your safety_, he had told her. _But let me promise to always be there when you are in need of it. _

More than anything, she wants to believe in Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

The Kamorovskii crime ring was, truly, a spectacular one. And not just for the scale, but for the creativity of their business operations. The tip from Mycroft that had brought Sherlock and he onto the case several years before had surfaced numerous misdeeds: the disappearance of a London hip-hop producer who had an increasingly profitable side business in narcotics; a tawdry sex club that had aimed for high-end and fell short in so many tragic and uncomfortable ways; coercion, blackmail, rape, bribery, the list went on.

One of the key players had been Yuri Kamorovskii, an arrogant, thirty-year-old former welterweight boxer with a big mouth and bigger chip on his shoulder. For his many crimes (stupidity being chief among of them, Sherlock had tastelessly pointed out on the stand), Yuri Kamorovskii had gone to prison following a lengthy trial and unsuccessful appeals process eight months before.

His elder brother had not been happy with the outcome; he was even less happy when his little brother was killed in a prison riot not three weeks after his sentencing. Vasily Kamorovskii did not forget those who slighted him. And he especially did not forget those who were responsible for the incarceration resulting in a gruesome jailhouse end for his little _mishka_. Shivs were not made for a quick, painless death, and his brother had not died one.

Vasily Kamorovskii hates his best friend, John Watson can tell. He can see it in the man's pale, flinty eyes.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?"

His English, John notes, is impeccable. Only the barest trace of an accent to be found at the curving edges and sharp corners of his words. It is a soft voice, but serious, and utterly without warmth. John hears winter in Kamorovskii's words. He hears ice and indifference and long, cold wars.

"I will only ask once: Where are they?" Sherlock demands.

Vasily Kamorovskii says something to his bodyguard in Russian, shrugs. "I have no idea what you mean."

"This will end badly for you," Sherlock promises.

"You were familiar, I think, with my brother. You knew him. You sent him to prison, in fact."

"His _crimes_ sent him to prison."

"Which you uncovered. And lead to his death."

"Then perhaps you should not have made such an incompetent your second in command," Sherlock spits, teeth clenched.

He rolls a toothpick in his mouth. "You took a thing I loved. My brother. My father's last boy. His pride. You took that from my family."

"Now look. The man broke the law in a dozen different ways," John says, shaking with rage. "The only thing you can hold us accountable for is having the nerve to take on a amoral gang of thugs and hustlers without the slightest sense of moral decency. We did not hold a knife to your brother's throat. We pulled no trigger. And we sure as hell didn't stab him in the back. We took _nothing from you_!" he shouts.

"I am sorry for your problem, Doctor Watson, Mr. Holmes," Kamorovskii sneers. "I am sure you will find your children. Perhaps they are already in, ah, _a better place_, I think you say."

_An eye for an eye_, is Kamorovskii's message. _My pain for yours_. John is blind with rage. He is not alone.

In all the years he has known Sherlock Holmes, he has never seen his friend burn with such fervent, violent frenzy as he does for the twenty-seven hours it takes to recover their children. He is commanding. He is vicious and hard and utterly single-minded in his pursuit. The darkness that Sally Donovan had warned him about long ago takes hold, burning below a deceptively calm surface. Sherlock's rage is an Old Testament thing, cold and terrible and utterly brutal. It is, John sees, a glimpse of another man, shades of might-have-been.

A subtle hint is more than Mycroft needs to assemble a task force operation worthy of a minor international dispute. (Which, technically, John supposes, it is.) Within minutes agents scramble intel on Komarovskii's ring: his dealings, his associates, his places of "business." Within hours they've located the security camera van in the parking garage of a half-demolished hotel in Mayfair that has been undergoing renovations since the previous autumn.

And that is where Sherlock takes matters into his own hands.

* * *

In truth, he does not regret shooting their minder. Another half a second and the man would have not hesitated to turn his OTs-23 Drotik submachine pistol on the room and emptied his clip. And so Sherlock Holmes cannot bring himself to care much about the bullet to the brain that put an end to those plans.

But he wishes his daughter had not witnessed it.

"You killed him!" Anna screams. Her hands are clamped over her brothers ears. She hugs him close, keeping him from seeing the sight before her wide and terrified eyes. "You killed him!" she shrieks again. Sherlock is frozen in place, shocked by her fear of him.

John pushes past, rushing to her side, checking them over for injuries. "Anna. Anna, look at me. Where is David. Where did they take him?"

She seems not to have heard him at all, and stares at Sherlock, cowering, her small face streaked with tears. She has her mother's eyes, large and dark. There is a pain in him he cannot name. He wants to approach his children, to wrap them both in his arms and promise they are safe, but the force of Anna's fear keeps him from moving. He feels...wrong. It is all wrong.

"_Where did they take him?_" John says again.

"Up," Jack says, voice shaking. He swallows fast, tears in his eyes and trying so hard to be brave. "They went up the stairs."

"Of course if would be the roof. Psychopaths and roofs," John hisses.

The sound of running footsteps echo from the hall. Sherlock turns away.

Greg Lestrade and a group of NSY rush into the room behind them. "For fuck's sake, Sherlock. I _fucking_ told you to _wait on us_." He seethes through his teeth and looks like he might have an aneurysm. Entirely possible he might. "Just once–just _once_. Christ, will you _never_ listen?!"

"He's on the roof. Is tactical in place?" he asks quickly.

"Are you evening listening?!" Lestrade bellows.

It is Sally Donovan who answers. "Buildings north, west, south and south-east. Clear shots on all sides if you can get him dead center."

Sherlock nods to Sally Donovan. "Get them out of here _now_."

* * *

Later, there is blood on his hands and ash drifting on the air. In the flashing red-blue lights of the police cars and ambulances, the children's faces are bled of color, their expressions achingly empty. David Watson is alive and well, gripping John's hand like a lifeline.

Sherlock's mind races—a rush of thoughts, memories, feelings, _sentiments_. He feels crushed by the weight of it: the resounding failure to solve a case; the shame of miscalculation; the grief of losses he might have prevented. Each, only a thousand times over, and combined. A torment beyond reckoning. His _children_. They are wearing blankets. They are in shock. The terrible look of fear has not left Anna's eyes.

Watching them from a darkness beyond the reach of flashing squad cards lights, Sherlock Holmes does the only thing he can do for them.

He leaves.

* * *

"Where is he?" Molly Hooper demands. Her long hair sticks out from beneath her wool cap in disarray. Three days. He is surprised it took her this long. "Mycroft, where is he?"

"On assignment."

She gasps in something like mirth. "On assignment. _On assignment?_" She cuts off abruptly, her jaw working in rage. She lifts her eyes to the ceiling and takes a forcible breath to calm herself. "Why? What could be so important that you need him _now_? I have two traumatized children at home. Three, seeing as they refuse to leave David. They need their father, Mycroft." Softer, she adds, "_I_ need him. So I will only ask one more time: Where. Is. He?"

_Oh Sherlock_. Mycroft Holmes presses the pads of his fingers together. If only the considerable reach of his power extended just that much further to his brother, how much easier his life would have been. "Believe me, Molly, when I tell you that in this matter I took no joy in co-opting my Sherlock's services. And please trust me when I tell you I have only ever had his interests at heart."

She is silent, furious. "Then why?" she spits.

"Because he asked. Out of fear of the alternative."

"I...I don't understand," Molly Hooper stutters. Her brows knit in confusion. "I don't understand what he could have asked of you."

He stands behind his desk and tells her, regretfully, "The one thing I could never deny him."

* * *

He lies to his brother, claiming without the work he'll be in danger of relapsing. Once granted, under Mycroft's begrudging orders he (grimly, _purposefully_) dismantles what is left of the Russian cell. It is not a good day to be criminal in Nizhny Novgorod once Sherlock Holmes is through dealing with the Kamorovskii syndicate. He thought it would be enough. That, once dispatched, the feeling would abate.

_(You killed him!)_

It does not. He asks another assignment of his brother. Then another...

Time drifts. Month after month of an unbroken, neon subcontinental nightmare: Singapore and Taipei and Kuala Lumpur, all clouded and shimmering in the gray, vegetal haze of the Southeast Asian rainy season.

_Please,_ Molly begs; John commands; Mary threatens. Anna and Jack and David, they all plead. He deletes every message, unable to face them. His mind howls, and memories cling to him like a damp shirt. The rush of emotion is so dense and packed – rage atop guilt beside fear – and they blur together and invade his mind and body much as does the smog in Beijing. It is suffocating, a dark, lingering miasma that leaves him ill for weeks. The work is the only respite, and his need for it as desperate and all-consuming as his need for heroin and cocaine once was. He stays far from London, and when he begins to dream the streets and tunnels and towers he knows better than his own face, he meanders through unfamiliar city after unfamiliar city, seeking their opposite.

Sherlock tells himself he does not see his son in slight, quick-moving footballers playing make-do games in bombed out lots and filthy streets. He is not reminded of his daughter when he watches a man lifts a small girl into his arms, her curtain of long black hair falling across his shoulder. He does not think of Molly when bright-lipped whores catcall from sweaty corners on nights drenched in neon and nicotine. Not the warm comfort of her breathing, the splay of her hair across his chest. Not the smallest upturning of her mouth, not the smile in her eyes, not the curve of her ear, like a seashell, delicate and pink.

On every night, in every city, he does not think of them, of _her_, of home.

* * *

_"You killed them!" _

_"You killed them!" _

_Anna's voice echoes echoes echoesechoesechoes. "You killed them!" _

(Not so much 'given up'–)

_Blood on the floor. Blood everywhere. Anna and Jack his children David dead eyes open, unseeing—_

_No no no no no John's son his son their sons his children Molly's children _

(–just sorted my priorities, I suppose.)

_Molly_

_Molly_

_Molly!_

_Her children, dead dead Molly's DEAD _

(I want yours.)

_Blood on his hands, hate in Molly's eyes —_

_SLAP! _

_SLAP! _

_SLAP! _

_—John's eyes Mary Mycroft Mummy _ _hate HATE **HATE**—_

He comes violently awake, suddenly gasping for air. Without conscious thought he bolts out of bed, collapses to the dirty floor, gasping. Sweat pours off him in rivulets. His heart hammering in his chest like a war drum.

Sherlock Holmes clenches his fists, wills the panic down. The memories of that night he cannot delete. He cannot. He does not deserve to live without them.

And so, when sleep claims him, the terrible accusation, each time:

_You killed him_, she said.

_You killed them_, he hears.

He almost had.

* * *

Six months pass by, each heavier than the last. He easily, gratefully, even, loses grasp of time. There's the work, and it devours him outright. Missing diplomats in Jakarta. A minor CIA incursion in Seoul. Organ trafficking in Bishkek. Imprisoned British nationals in Manila. He takes every case, no matter how boring, how dull, how idiotic and useless and _demeaning_ because it keeps him and his terrible Schwarzschild radius of danger and destruction far from the people he has hurt the most.

October. He's in Phnom Phen, holed up outside a brothel fronting much more illicit exchanges when he checks his mobile and realizes: He has missed Anna's birthday.

Unbidden, memories of the day she was born flash in his mind: Molly's great resolve and practiced calm over forty-eight long hours of labor. His own uncertainty, anxiety and fear. The mesmerizing way his daugher had looked at him, exactly twenty-four seconds after she came into the world, strangely quiet and assessing him with huge curious eyes.

Nine years since that day, when his life changed forever. He feels the press of each one, and suddenly feels very old. He is not yet fifty, and somehow feels the age of the universe.

A text from Molly awaits him the following morning: _She didn't cry when you weren't here_, she writes. _I did, Sherlock._

Three months later he misses Jack's birthday, and with it Christmas. Just as he has summer holidays, his parents silver anniversary, and the date Molly first learned she was pregnant—the day they've claimed as something close to special. Something entirely their own.

There are no texts.

* * *

He's in a dive in Hanoi, complete with misanthropic owner; creaking ceiling fan; telly blaring Vietnamese commercials between dubbed, heavily edited versions of American comedies, when Mycroft sits down across the greasy formica table, slides an envelope and a thumb drive toward him and says, "So, brother dear. Your next assignment."

Sherlock does raise his head. He swirls the tea in his chipped china mug. "What, no harassment this time? No, 'How much longer, Sherlock?' No, 'Remedy this situation, Sherlock.' No, '_Fix your family, Sherlock_.'"

"No."

"Why? You've always _loved_ pointing out my moral failings," he growls, sliding his fingers against his three-day-old scruff.

His brother hesitates, folds his hands atop his umbrella handle. An empty, interminable silence hangs between them. Eventually, Mycroft looks up and says with no trace of enjoyment. "Because I am no longer certain you can."

* * *

He shows up at the door on a wet February night, wearing rain in his hair and sadness just the same. There are bright threads of silver at this temples that hadn't been there when she saw him last.

Molly stares, frozen by the shock of him. Deeply conflicting emotions rips through her. The flood of relief is overpowering (_Alive alive he's alive_), as is the altogether violent rush of anger. A fractured silence hangs between them, filled solely by the heaviness of unspoken things and the cold crying of the winter wind tearing through the heart of London.

She feels an overwhelming sense of déjà vu standing here before him shaking with rage and disappointment. Molly cannot bring herself to speak, too afraid that if she lets out so much as a squeak of all the anguish she's felt in the last eleven months, she will end up striking him the way she once had years before when she learned he was using again. If she speaks, it might break the last levee, and her heart would empty out right there on the steps of Baker Street.

Instead she leads him upstairs, where his children go wild eyed at the sight. They sob in his arms, begging Sherlock Holmes for answers that for once, he does not have. When their tears abate, they grow strangely shy in their father's presence. Molly presses a shaking hand to her throat at the awkwardness. Though she can hardly blame them, her children are not accustomed to self-consciousness, and wear it all the worse for it. She listens from the landing as Sherlock carries them to bed, telling them he will still be there when they wake.

"Promise?" she hears Jack ask.

"Promise."

She waits. She breathes slowly, steeling herself. When the door closes, he descends the stairs to the kitchen. She raises her chin and calmly tells him, "You may leave now."

He blinks quickly. "Molly–"

"We will not discuss this, Sherlock," she says, her usual warmth and cheer replaced by cold fury. "I will only say this once and then you will go. You will not be allowed in this house until I know everything. If you have been been using again–"

"I haven't."

"You will prove it. And then you will tell me _why_."

He hesitates. His features are carefully schooled, but there is a lost, panicked look in his eyes. "I realize that you deserve some manner of an explanation–"

She turns away, gripping the sink. "Please leave, Sherlock."

"I said I would be here."

"Then come back," she says, not quite looking over her shoulder. "Come back, tomorrow. Otherwise, don't. Go. Do whatever you want, but you have to _choose_. You can't keep doing this: leaving us behind and running away. I would rather them remember the father they love and struggle to understand his choices than to suffer through your abandonment again."

"Abandoned? It was not– I never– " He falters. So many emotions Sherlock Holmes could never fully understand, least of all his own. His expression is at once annoyed and confused and sad. He steps in close, reaches for her hands and holding them in his own in the space between them. In his larger ones, they seem so small. Once, he had always been able to make her feel small. She will never let him get away with that again. "Please, Molly, I am their _father_," he implores.

Molly wrenches from his grasp. "That may be, Sherlock." Her throat constricts as she says it, the words a struggle to get out. "But you are _not_ my husband."

To that, he has no reply.

* * *

_"Sherlock?" He heard her feet on the stairs. A second later, Molly appeared in the kitchen, shrugging out of her coat and turning to the entrance to the living room. "What was it you wanted–" As she caught sight of his parents, she stopped, looking to him with brows furrowed in confusion. Her hands self-consciously came to her middle, resting atop the small swell of her belly. _

_"Mummy. Father. Dr. Molly Hooper," he said, stepping to her side to make the introduction. _

_His mother smiled. "Hello, dear. Lovely to meet another of Sherlock's friends." _

_"Um, hello." _

_"Molly is thirty-three; a graduate of Cambridge and St. Bart's Hospital, where she is currently employed as senior Specialist Registrar. She has aided me in many of my cases, offering medical, biological and chemical consultation and assistance. She is, at the moment, fourteen weeks pregnant with our child. Her areas of expertise include biochemistry and–"_

_"What?" Mummy demanded. _

_Sherlock blinked. "–histopathology. Tissue and human ligamenture," he clarified. _

_"Not that, Sherlock," his father cut in. "You said she was–"_

_"Pregnant." Molly interrupted, smiling shyly. "Yes. Um, I wanted a baby. Your son–" She bit her lip, looking up, then down again, wringing her hands. "He knew how happy it would make me."_

_"A grandchild?" Mummy said, gazing in wonder. She clasped a hand to her mouth. "Oh. Oh!" she managed, pressing her other hand against her heart. "Sherlock. I cannot believe it!" _

_She rose to her feet and instantly threw her arms around Molly, who recovered from her shock after a moment enough to return the embrace. "My God in heaven, darling girl. Come sit. You have no idea how desperately I have longed for this day."_

_"We thought it would never come," his father said, astonished. He settled on Molly's other side, so she was tucked between his parents, bright-eyed and beaming. _

_"And here we just assumed you preferred men. Like your brother," Mummy said with teary sniffle. She pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped at her eyes. _

_"Mmm, no. I do not share his sexual preferences, nor do I ever want to think of 'Mycroft' and anything remotely 'sexual' in the same thought process ever again. I'll be deleting that," he said, frowning._

_Molly smirked."Wait, Mycroft is–" _

_"Gay as a picnic."_

_Molly snorted the most indelicate of sounds at his father's terrible phrasing, prompting Sherlock to point out their shared affinity for very bad jokes. _

_"Oh, I don't know how you put up with him," Mummy said, shaking her head."You must have the patience of a saint," she said._

_"Mmm, something like that," Sherlock agreed, settling back in his chair. Astonishment flashed across Molly's face at the compliment. Little time to dwell on it though, as she was suddenly the subject of Mummy's fierce and adoring attention once more. _

_As he watched the scene unfold, it occurred to him how foreign this exchange must be for Molly. Her own mother had died in childbirth; her father, not long after she'd gone to university. She had made her own way in the world for a long time without parental figures; Truthfully, she had no real need of them. But she had very much missed them, that much had been apparent._

_His mother clasped her hands around Molly's, as if afraid she might vanish at any moment, taking the dream of her grandchild away. His father placed a hand upon her shoulder, silent as he so often was, wholly content in his joy. _

_Sherlock feigned disinterest. He steepled his hands as if submitting to his mind palace while Mummy spouted nonsense questions at a subject who could scarcely get a word in edgewise. But his eyes remained open and fixed on Molly Hooper, who wanted more than anything to have a family. _


End file.
